


now playing 'hey moon' by john maus

by londondungeon2



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Sleep Deprivation, Sleeping Beauty Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:35:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londondungeon2/pseuds/londondungeon2
Summary: Johnny C -what was his last name- finds his cot, eventual and weak. He drags himself again. When falling onto the cot, his bony knees squish up the jellyfish hive of his stomach and the crown of his head touches over the white fabric, as if bent in prayer. His cot smells of ash.
Relationships: Johnny "Nny" C. & Devi D., Johnny "Nny" C./Devi D.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	now playing 'hey moon' by john maus

_If you can’t find your bed, do you really live there?_ Johnny did not own a bed though, rather bringing years ago a foldable cot to the deflating house with his new BA in “Art History” a useless degree. He was not supposed to stay, turning twenty-five, turning twenty-eight, reaching thirty. Gray is starting to touch his roots.

The original deed over the sinking walls was to be a pet project after graduation. Then, legs start skittering in the walls so he takes upon himself to buy pesticide and not leave until he has smashed out all the roaches. Belongings start to wiggle out of his suitcase. The final for sculpting - two Pillsbury mascots to represent corruption in business, plus his, his someone always cook crescent rolls on snowy days - lean on walls. He takes it upon himself to fix mouths in the kitchen ceiling. Suddenly it is 2003 and he is twenty-nine. He makes a promise to leave when Mr. Samsa (and his million twins) die.

However, he barely knows all the inches of the house after living there, alone, for six years. He drags himself through the hallways, stopping some moments to unbuckle the stone heels and then giving up on the laces. Even with good effort, Johnny cannot navigate himself to his likely rat-eaten cot. 

There is the understudy of his cot, the moth-eaten couch which he can easily find, but sentimentality makes him want to find that dusting pad from his broken memory of college. 

777’s hallways always feel so bottomless, as if he is stepping on the pliable intestines of a whale to beg for redemption like Johnah. Doors often shift with time. One morning, vomit warm on his ankles, he takes a white piece of chalk to outline one. Months later, he looks upon the monolith with white edges and brown planks that goes nowhere and only itches his left eye clueless. The house is wacky.

One would suffer through neurosis if they had to venture through the labyrinth daily. Johnny rarely notices. However, in this infrequent instance, he fucking notices. Or maybe, he is pretending to notice, making up the patterns that should and should not be in the walls. Johnny usually curls anywhere when spent from exhaustion. He had before fallen into some carcass lap, the open tacky intestines as his pillow, dreaming of hair so purple it seemed to darken to black and of the stench of pen ink pulsing in fiberglass.

The search drives him into such a frenzy that when he sees a flicker of motion, he stabs cobra-like. His knife finds cyan fur.

Johnny stiffens, looking at the withering raisin-sized eyes of his dead pet. _When had he once thought getting a rabbit was a good idea - was he still sleeping on a cot?_ With a deliberate hand, he pulls out the blade of something with dusty blood, making it fruitless to paint with. A finger lifts up at it. “I made it swift, Nailbunny. You should be grateful for that - no one has made it fast for me.”

Resuming, his shoulder bumps the wall. Cautious eyes catch the vaporous motion of cyan rising and curling around his temple. The motion seems to think better of itself and falls off, a dizzy firefly peeling away from the scene. 

He just wants to find his cot, see if it is tangible. This sick procedure is mimicking his last search for Christmas lights. He never uses them, only clenches the glass, rainbow spider-eggs and watches these very odd raindrops land over his hand unsourced, sitting inside the only room without a mouth in the ceiling. A creature in his mind, less evil but still volatile, wants to find the cot more than anything. Like a sleeping shark, he continues mechanically. 

Johnny C - _what was his last name_ \- finds his cot, eventual and weak. He drags himself again. When falling onto the cot, his bony knees squish up the jellyfish hive of his stomach and the crown of his head touches over the white fabric, as if bent in prayer. His cot smells of ash. 

Two thoughts come to him. The first is unimportant: _No one tried to wake Sleeping Beauty with a true love’s kiss but rather sex. Even then she was not woken, Sleeping Beauty was woken until after giving birth._ The second thought is devastating, washing out the first: he is not tired.

A flame passes over his mind, slowly reeling in the spindly bones of his fingers. He loathed sleeping! Why was he even here! To be raped by the insidious nightmare teleported from the moonlight’s tunnel like an alien beam, to have his memory slink out of his ear like a slug. Purple, so dark it seems black, eats at his vision. A scream shots out of his mouth. With blading fingers, he rips apart the cot. White fabric flies around him and his world in monotone with rage.

The … the thing inside the bed halts his rampage. The sight of fizzed mauve hair inside an open ribcage of white, dangling over cotton bulges, terrifies him. Breathing irregularly, he blinks - an attempt to pinch her from his memory. She is still there, the black needles of eyelashes pointing down and nose jutting up like a snow mountain. His cracked polystyrene hands shake. With a deliberate lean, Johnny goes to touch the moon face, to test this reality.

He wakes up.

  
  


“I had a dream about you.” Johnny leans his shoulders deep into burgundy cement, making sure to hurt himself.

“Oh. What was it like?”

Some lingering in his chest cannot allow him to admit he had found her inside his cot like a poor Sleeping Beauty nor that he had attempted a true love’s kiss. Instead, licking the pulsing skin of his lower lip: “We were at our cliff and we were just, talking. About art, you said something about Apollo.”

Devi smiles hesitantly. “Is that a good dream?”

Blood swells from his lower lip. “Yes.”


End file.
